Spelling You See

Many of you are familiar with the curriculum Math-U-See by Demme Learning. But did you know they have also created a spelling curriculum called Spelling You See? We recently had the chance to review Ancient Achievements- Level F. 

What it is Spelling You See has a unique approach in how they teach spelling. Gone are the boring spelling lists that are mindlessly rewritten numerous times. They offer 7 different levels of spelling curriculum. Each level contains 36 weeks of lessons that are divided between 2 books. Each week splits into 5 sections labeled A-E. Each section is a 2 page layout and should only take about 10-15 minutes each day to complete.
What's included With each level you receive: 2 consumable student books 1 instructors handbook 1 pack of Crayola erasable colored pencils A special code that gives you online access to several different videos showing you how to use this curriculum as well as some PDF downloads.
How it works On day A, the student reads the passage out loud to the parent. In level F, they read passages that have to do with Ancient times and events. Some of the cultures talked about are Sumerians, ancient Chinese, Greeks and their war with Troy, King Arthur, Robin-hood, Leaning Tower of Pisa and so much more.
After they read the passage, they then are instructed to do "vowel or consonant chunks" with a colored pencil. There is a box on the page that shows a list of what the chunks are. The idea behind chunking is to help the student learn specific letter patterns which will help them learn to decipher words & sounds on their own eventually. 
After the student reads & chunks the passage on the left hand side, they move to the second page on the right where the passage they just read is printed out with a blank line under the pre-printed passage. The student is then to do copywork and write out the passage just as they see it written. The directions also state the student is then to chunk the passage they just wrote.
Day B & Day C do the same as the above instructions.
On day D, the student does the read aloud, chunks the passage and then on the second page, they have to write the passage out as it is dictated to them. They are allowed to ask for help with punctuation and capitalization as well as tougher words to spell out. At the bottom of the page, there is a place for the parent to write how many words were spelled correctly.
On day E, the student reads the passage out loud, chunks the passage and then on the 2nd page, they have to write the passage as it's dictated with no help. At the bottom on the page, there is a place for the parent to write how many words were spelled correctly, the goal being to have more words correctly spelled this day than on day D.
The instructors manual provides a wealth of info on how best to implement this program. It gives you an overview of how and why this curriculum works, it shows an over of each lesson and what is being taught, explains how to chunk certain combinations, resources for each lesson as well as an answer for the chunking in each lesson.
How we used it We did 1 lesson a week which meant we did one part each day that took no more than 15 minutes each. It was easy for my daughter to read aloud the passage as I was getting breakfast ready in the morning. From there, she went on to chunk the passage the first 3 days. Even though the directions said to then chunk the written passage, I usually let her skip this as she seemed to grasp the concepts. When it came to the dictation parts, either I or one of my other older children could read it to her while she wrote it out.

We really enjoy this curriculum as it combines so many things. The student learns interesting facts with each passage (can we say history?) They get to practice their penmanship with the copy work. The focus on the dictation passages is on how many words they got correct, not wrong. Positive reinforcement is always a good thing. I also love how everything is spelled out on how use it in the instructors manual so there is no work for me in prepping it. Also, each level goes by a letter and not a grade, especially good for those that might be struggling. This curriculum is based on ability level, not age or grade. To best figure out what level your student is on, you can have them take the placement test. Another thing to note, the student pages are perforated, so for those who like to remove pages either as they do them or for a portfolio, they come out of the book with ease.
You can read about our review from last year on Level E-American Spirit

Spelling You See

It isn't very often we get to try out a product that is new and hadn't even hit the homeschool market until now! Enter Spelling You See that we had the privilege of reviewing from the Demme Learning company which is local to me in Lititz PA. This is also the same company who published the popular Math-U-See curriculum! We've had recent success with Math-U-See so we were excited to try out their brand new spelling curriculum! Hannah happened to be the lucky one who received Level E-American Spirit.

Spelling You See has a unique approach in how they teach spelling. This is not a boring, memorize a list of words then test, curriculum! This curriculum was founded by Dr. Karen Holinga, who has 30 years experience as a reading specialist. This spelling curriculum is not divided by grade but by levels and designed to go at the pace of a student. This philosophy follows 5 developmental stages of spelling:

-Preliterate

-Phonetic

-Skill Development

-Word Extensions

-Derivational Constancy

How this works:

To figure out what level to place your elementary student, you can follow this placement guide. Following this, it showed me that Hannah would be placed in their top level that is currently available, American Spirit. There are 5 levels available with 2 more in the works:

A- Listen and Write

B- Jack and Jill

C-Wild Tales

D-Americana

E-American Spirit

Coming Soon:

F: Ancient Achievements

G: Modern Milestones

This curriculum is divided into 36 weekly lessons spread out through 2 student workbooks consisting of 5 lessons a week. Each lesson takes no more than 10-15 minutes. The key to this curriculum is that the parent sits with the child to do each lesson. At the beginning of the week, you read the passage to your child then help them "chunk" the vowels and consonant pairs using colored pencils (meaning you color the pairs such as ea, ee, ie, ch, ph th, etc).  They also practice writing the passage daily. This helps the student visualize sound patterns, making them recognizable. You will do this for the first 3 lessons of the week. The last 2 lessons of the week involve you dictating the passage to your child for them to write down what you read to them. On day 4 you will help them with punctuation and spelling but the 5th day is sort of a "test" day in letting your child write the dictation completely on their own. What makes this curriculums approach unique is that they bring together a visual, audio & physical learning experience in helping to learn spelling. And not only is spelling taught but handwriting is also practiced as is reading skills honed since they read the passage along with their parent! This also helps by writing daily the same passage to implant the words and their meanings. 

How we used it: I read over the instructor's handbook before starting to learn how to really use this curriculum to the fullest potential. While you could possibly use this curriculum with just the student books, there is a lot of great info in the handbook as well as a special code to access online videos & content. So I would recommend purchasing the handbook to make sure you know how to best use this curriculum to the max!  Each day, I sat down with Hannah and followed the guided schedule. She is a pretty good reader so we would read the passage together rather than the guidelines of me reading it to her. Then she used the colored pencils that came with the curriculum to chunk the vowel & consonant blends. After that, she would do the writing that was required for each day. Each days lessons were contained in a 2 page layout, one on the left & right, so no page flipping was needed.

We enjoyed the fact that the daily readings were tied into factual American history (which is what she has been studying this year for history). So not only was she learning spelling, she was also learning tidbits of history, practicing handwriting and reading all in just 10-15 minutes a day!
Each level contains 2 student books with the option of purchasing an instructor's handbook. Level E- American Spirit, which we reviewed is available for purchase at $30 for the student workbooks & $14 for the instructor's handbook. While there is no exact age or grade levels, this curriculum is for elementary ages or to be used as remedial work for older students who need to work on their spelling skills.